I smell expansions! Tons upon tons of themed expansions, filled with new worlds, new creatures and new stories.

Personally, I still want the one, big Albianesque world as the main hub of the game, that can be explored and lived in. The ship could be discovered somewhere on that world. Perhaps the cozy house you raised your first creatures in turns out to actually be a space ship.

I'm currently working on a miniature sketch of a world. It won't be Albia (but it won't explicitly NOT be Albia either). I'm thinking a feral, overgrown theme.

I think that's wonderful, Ghosthande. Well done! That sounds perfect to me, exactly what I was trying to get at. Something simple and elegant that informs what the world is and why the player is there. Nothing outrageously complicated.

Should we discuss names? Or do you want to do that without interference?

Personally, I like the idea of "Feral Run". It's both alluding to a concept coined by the community, it's short and concise, and it brings in mind a wild world with wild creatures - something to explore, and possibly tame. And feralrun.com is, imo, an alluring address.

Feral run sounds good to me, but I haven't gotten in contact with a lawyer yet so i don't know if it's trademarkable. I got a letter saying what the rates will be, and said i was willing to pay, then heard nothing. I'm not sure how long to wait before writing again.

I personally think that Feral Run sounds a bit out of place for the general tone of the game, not only does it sound easily confusable for the feral run concept in the Creatures series, but it also isn't that atmospheric of a name. Maybe something more memorable? I know quite a few metarooms across the history of our community have had some very memorable names, such as Artemia, Xandra, Veridia, Montu, Terra Pluvialis, Primordia, Hydrocea, and of course; Albia. Sure most of them end in the letter A, but it's certainly more memorable and atmospheric in my opinion and I think that if we tried to come up with a name similarly to those, we can't go wrong.

That is, if by Feral Run you're referring to the name of the area in the game, and not the name of the game itself. If it refers to the name of the game, I still think it would be rather confusing, even more so in that context but I wouldn't give the recommendation based on the metaroom names if we're talking about the name of the game, only the areas.

"My blog is currently the best way to see activity from me these days."

I'm thinking Feral Run as the name of the game, as it would, from an old Creatures player's point of view, most likely represent the state of the game when you enter it; only a few eggs left in hibernation after generations upon generations of creatures having spent their lives in a wolfling run (which would be an awesome name as well, being the more known term for the same concept, but sounding a bit too wolfish, and all of its meanings would be lost on new players - besides, with the game called Feral Run, we could run a wolfling run in Feral Run).

I still believe that having it as the name of the game would be rather confusing, but I also feel like it doesn't quite reflect the scientific/artificial life simulation aspect of the game, new players might think it's more about animals attempting to retreat, or any "Run" game, where the player's avatar automatically runs across the screen in an auto-scrolling platformer. Also, in a rather unlikely case compared to the previous two it may also lead people to believe that the game is solely about wildlife and animals in the wild, which is often quite the contrary with the roles that the hand usually fills.

As well as the above, I also believe that it might be too strong of a link to the series that the game is based off of, and could potentially cause some problems in the future.

EDIT: I would also like to add that it might be best for us to collaboratively brainstorm potential names so we have more of a selection rather than sticking with what comes to mind, as I personally believe it'll help us make the best choice that we can.

"My blog is currently the best way to see activity from me these days."

While Doringo has a point that it might cause some tone conflicts (it does sound like kind of a... violent name now that I think about it), I disagree with the point about a link to the Creatures series being a bad thing. In fact, I strongly believe the name should still be firmly linked to the Creatures series somehow.

(Even if mainly out of personal defiance and sheer spite towards IP law.)

Hey Geat_Masta, something that might help out later on, if you're planning on getting a team together, is making something akin to a Trello board. It's great for collaborating and getting all your ideas into one place. I use it frequently, even though I work by myself, just to help me keep track of what needs to get done, and for remembering things for later. Another good thing about it, is you can make the board public, so people can come in and see how the project is coming along, and what to expect in the next update.

Seconding Trello for tracking - even if you don't plan to coordinate a team, it would be good to be able to post progress in a central location so that others can pick up on what you're doing and be able to work on their own add-ons.

Unfortunately, no, I looked it up and got somewhat of an idea of what it is. I only really use basic tools to make my games, such as Construct 2 and 2D drawing programs. T_T
I do want to become a programmer eventually, however, it's not that feasible right now.

Ignoring the back of the fluid being visible despite that it should be behind the background, and the ball never stabilizing, because it doesn't know what % is submerged, just that it is, that should give you an idea of fluids.

I might not have programming ability but, I specialize in story/ lore making, and art (specifically pixel, though I am capable of making decent 2D art in GIMP) I have two games in the works, though one is on hiatus, as I quickly realized I absolutely need to stay focused on one major project at a time, or I will end up procrastinating till eventually I come to a full stop.

I have to hold back the desire to offer up my abilities for Kreatures, as I know I need to focus on my own game. D; It's a hard thing to ignore, as I've been playing Creatures for about 12 years, and it's taken a significant part of my heart along with it.

Seems like you know what you're doing though, I just hope you don't get overwhelmed with all the suggestions, haha, keep up the good work!

I'm still working on the pose concepts... I got as far as mapping potential joint locations but had company over last night and so didn't get to work on it as much as I expected. Should have some actual pose sketches by later tonight or tomorrow.

Since the subject is artificial life, and the topic of Greek names keeps coming up, what about incorporating something like "bio-" into the name? Or "abio-", as in "abiogenesis"? Or maybe something like "DNAutomata"?

For some reason the name "Tree of Life" is sticking with me and might be relevant to the theming we are trying to go for, mythologically and gameplay-wise. (Also I see the lil guys Ghosthande is designing as possibly being arboreal? Maybe it's the tail)

A quick Wikipedia search brings up no games for that title, if that helps any.

All have too many search results to be useful. Google the term before you suggest it. Translating isn't such a hot option either, because to be searchable it has to be easily transliterated from sound to text, so best to be in english as the world's most popular language. Furthermore it has to be easily understood, e.g. the name 'subnautica' tells you everything you need to know, game about under water. Similarly no symbols, consider how ke$ha is a stupid name, because the symbol means google can't search for it correctly unless they put in a use case especially for that.

I try googling the names, as well as checking out the name in an url address, like feralrun.com. Finding a unique name that gives a minimum of Google results gets really challenging if you also want a simple and catching name. Too complex names can get confusing and off-putting.

Yeah, maybe. I'm having a hard time figuring out how to handle heat in the engine. 1 I can't find clear instructions on how to make heat rising and cold falling work in a fluid simulation. and 2 the earth isn't a closed system, so i have so simulate that by having total heat energy decay over time, but I don't know how fast to make that.

Bifrost wrote:Yeah. A combination of two to three words might be our best chance. "Feral Run", "Digital Life", "Computer Beasts", "Critters of Avalon" - those kinds of names, but something with a bit more zing.

Otherwise, one word made from two key concepts could also work. Like "TamaGenetics", " DigiGenesis", "ArtificiaLife" - you get where I'm going.

Maybe we can use something generated by Protective/Overflowing Tub (I'm kidding, I'm kidding)

I'm trying to think of more ideas. Looking around on the wiki and all that.

Geat_Masta wrote:Yeah, maybe. I'm having a hard time figuring out how to handle heat in the engine. 1 I can't find clear instructions on how to make heat rising and cold falling work in a fluid simulation. and 2 the earth isn't a closed system, so i have so simulate that by having total heat energy decay over time, but I don't know how fast to make that.

I'm not sure how much help this would be, but the old DOS/SNES/TG-16/Wii Viirtual Console game "SimEarth: The Living Planet" had heat currents on a global scale; maybe you could take a look at how it does that for point 2. I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to do with there, but that's the best bet of a suggestion I can come up with.

If you're wondering why I'm doing fluids, parallaxing, particle effects, and CAs simultaneously: they have a lot of similar problems, e.g. it's possible CAs will be implemented as a sort of invisible particle effect, they all have the problem of being unclear when to render them, etc.

After that comes adding:
lights,
sound,
springs & strings, (e.g. you'd use a spring so a tree blowing in the wind looks right)
creature scripting,
remote cameras (rendering to an object rather than the screen)

And I think that's it! the rest is just adding polish to everything, but I think that'll be all the features. Am I forgetting anything?

@bifrost I'm super curious about what your idea for the main world is, do you think you'll be ready to show us that simple sketch soon?

I'm not sure if this is something you'd want to think about at this point or if you'd want to just deal with this after everything's done, but I hope there will be tutorials and walk-throughs and step-by-steps for third-party developers for this new game! I'm certain there will be lots of people keenly interested in creating new objects and creatures and worlds.

@Merboy: I think that will be a key to keep the community involved and active, as well as bringing in new players.

@Geat Masta: I hope to have a sketch that makes at least some sense up early this coming week.

And while we're at the @s.

@Ghosthande: I love what you're doing with that creature. My only mew request would be to also pick apart the head, so that at least ears, eyes, horns and hair are separate. It would make for so much more diverse breeds.

And that leads to another suggestion. "Breed" as a game name. Perhaps "Breed - digital life" or something along those lines.